Tag Archives: TV5

Mark Ames, the expat American editor of eXiled (“Mankind’s only alternative since 1997”), whose blog speculation on an Ambani hand in the helicopter crash that killed Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy caused rioters to attack Reliance properties in that State last wek, is baffled by the “class war” that has broken out in India.

“This has to be the single weirdest episode in my journalism career–and that’s saying a lot, considering all the strange and scary shit I’ve been through over the past decade-plus. I caused a mass riot in India, leaving 185 people arrested so far, and about 100 business owned by Larry Summers’ oligarch-friends smoldering in ruins.

“The class war is on–but not in the supposedly free-spirited United States of America, where you can rape Americans of everything they’re worth and never worry about so much as a broken window… instead my article sparked an uprising on the other side of the globe. Go figure.”

Ames’ article, published on 3 September 2009, was carried by the Telugu channel TV5, leading to attacks on malls, hypertores, petrol pumps and other property owned by Mukesh Ambani across Andhra Pradesh. Reliance Industries denied any role and threatened legal recourse. The Andhra government arrested the editors of the TV station, sparking protests by journalists.

Screenshots of four English news channels (NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times Now, News X) and four Telugu news channels (Saakshi, TV9, TV5, Gemini News), around 2.40 pm on the day the Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy‘s helicopter went missing.

The top screen proclaiming the missing chief minister “safe” is of Saakshi, the channel owned by Reddy’s son, Jagan Mohan Reddy, now a member of Parliament. Gemini News too had come to the same conclusion, while among the English channels, NewsX claimed the chopper carrying the CM had been found.

The top-23 Google searches at 6.10 pm were all related to the news of the chief minister whose whereabouts were unclear eight hours after he went missing.